Feeding schedule - once a day best?

I tried to search for any threads on this topic but gor no luck, so if I'm repeating it please forgive me and be good enough to point me to the thread...

After losing Temper and Polkie last year, both living a good long life, but still hard to take (Temper succumbed to unspecified cancer at age 17 or so and Polkie some 9 months later to CRF at age 16 or so ... both were rescues) I have a 3 year old female Dusky and a crazy 7 month old male Mojo who just got neutered 3 weeks ago. Dusky is a little on the chubby side. I kinda have been blaming on the fact that she was getting into Polkie's diet food which she loved, which was very high on carbs and low on protein because of CRF. I tried switching her to all wet, but it's still not a success. I was successful on getting her on Wellness Core dry and she will eat some wet but not enough to live on it. Mojo is 99% on wet. He just goes for the Wellness Core if he sees Dusky eating it. After many attempts and keeping a budget in mind, for the wet stuff I found they will eat Performintrin Ultra and I will get as a treat Fancy Feast sometimes. They absolutely LOVE one the the best wet foods out there Addiction - but it costs me 5 dollars in gas alone just to go get it, so that doesnt happen too often these days....
Mojo is happy and healthy and beautifully sleeky...and I don't want him to be a fat cat. He inhales his food. I feed them twice a day, spittling a 55 oz can between them each morning and night and about 1/4 cup of dry Wellness Core.
Someone told me that cats should be fed only once a day. Is that true? Am I feeding too little or too much? Dusky doesnt ever finish her wet so Mojo ends up eating it...she would rather go to the dry.

I am sure someone else will give you expert advice, but I have always fed my cats twice a day. Most cats self-regulate their weight if they are happy and healthy, but some need extra help and control.

I prefer three times a day, but I have one cat that gets incredibly moody (will try to start stuff with other cats and nags us) if he goes too long between meals. I also have kittens.

For scheduled feeding where the cats only get a set amount, I would honestly say no less than twice a day. Especially in kitties with heath problems.

If your current feeding schedule works for both you and the cats, stick with it. You can run the calories and cats weights by sharky or another member who's better at figuring that out.

I measure free feed twice a day...

I use roughly 20 calories per lb... depending on who you listen to 15-25 cal per lb or 20-30 per lb..... I have all indoor cats thus I lean toward low to middle calorie wise....

For the food I feed my 14 lb boys get half a cup plus wet food roughly 3-6 oz each

my girls are 9 and 12lbs eat half a cup with a few ozs of wet or freeze dry raw

the kittens are free feed dry as they are still growing

I had problems with my cat Brady puking intermittently a few months ago. The vet could not find anything wrong and suggested that it might be because he snarfs his food. They recommended that I feed three times a day and I find that when we do, he doesn't puke. (unless of course he finds a mouse in the house and eats it)

I feed my cats five meals a day.

In the morning they get two servings an hour apart, and even the first of those meals is split in two servings. A snack mid day, or after get home from work in the evening, depending on my schedule..

,Supper is later at night 8-9 and the two meals are again actually split into three servings.

Then a snack before bed.

I do this for several reasons. All three of my cats are on different diets, and eat at different speeds. This is the way I have found that I can best control who eats what and how much.

I split of the first meal in the morning, and the first meal at supper time into two smaller portions fed a few minutes apart, to prevent scarf and barf.

My boys are fed small wet meals 2x/day and I divvy up the half of the food in dry form- half set out in the morning, half at night. In other words, I feed 50/50 wet and dry and they get half of that in the morning and the other half in the evening.

Archie is my chubster.... he has lost some weight. Rex's weight fluctuates a bit. He was on a wet food strike for a little while until I started sprinkling freeze-dried meat or fish on top.

ETA - my vet did tell me that several small meals a day is best for kitty, since their wild ancestors would eat that way.

Originally Posted by otto

I feed my cats five meals a day.

In the morning they get two servings an hour apart, and even the first of those meals is split in two servings. A snack mid day, or after get home from work in the evening, depending on my schedule..

,Supper is later at night 8-9 and the two meals are again actually split into three servings.

Then a snack before bed.

I do this for several reasons. All three of my cats are on different diets, and eat at different speeds. This is the way I have found that I can best control who eats what and how much.

I split of the first meal in the morning, and the first meal at supper time into two smaller portions fed a few minutes apart, to prevent scarf and barf.

Click to expand...

this is almost exactly how I feed my cats. for the same reason. They are on different diets so they have to eat it when I give it to them, with bigger portions they wouldn't finish it. I split the morning and night meals to stop my siamese from eating too fast and barfing, plus I was told that many small meals encourages weight loss, which was required as well...

I feed twice a day for all my animals. Before my dog and cat were diagnosed with urinary crystals (go figure my dog and other cat are also fear poopers, our house can get quite messy at times!)

I was worried about weight and so I fed Innova Low fat diet to Madison and Sassy Bill (cat and dog)

My new rescue is used to being a chunker so I keep her on the innova low fat food (my other two eat RX diets) to keep the weight in check and typically feed a small handful to them each time they eat to ensure its all eaten at breakfast/dinner time and to help prevent over feeding

when I was mixing in wet food(rescue doesn't like it and Madison will only eat pouch food...which they don't make in RX) I mixed in half a pouch of the wet in the morning and would feed the other half the next morning. Maddy weighs in at about 10-11lbs, my dog is at a perfect 15lbs, and the rescue, Maybelle is around 10ish lbs as well.

I measure free-feed twice a day. However, Tofu is such a slow eater that food ends up being available almost 24/7 - he hardly ever finishes before the next time I give him more. Having said that, I feed him a home-cooked diet and he is unlikely to gain a lot of unhealthy weight from it. I think it would be a different story if it were kibble.

I read somewhere that if left to their own devices, a healthy cat eats up to 15 very small meals per day, returning to the food every 2-3 hours. I keep that in mind when feeding them, so I don't mind having food available most of the time. But again like I said, he doesn't gorge himself.

I do a measured free feed twice a day. Usually there is a little left by the time I put out the next feeding. If the bowls are completely empty (even if it's been only a few minutes) Shareena does the scarf and barf thing. The others don't seem to mind so much, but they will definitely swarm me the second I come home if the food is all gone.

I feed 2-3 times a day.

Aya is on CD for her urine ph issues and general whizzing where she isn't supposed to (we're using cat attract and feliway now with good success -crosses fingers). The Vet wanted to put her on dry because of the cost, but given the heat here and the fact that she is not an enthusiastic water drinker I chose the wet CD despite the cost. At nearly 200 yen or $2 per can its pricy so I can't have her waste it.

She gets half a can at a time once in the morning and once around 4 when I get home. She is a tiny cat, very active and skinny! So recently I decided to add a third feeding before bed of another half can on most days. If she snarf the first 2 feeding she gets a third if she's leaving some I ususally hold off on the 3rd.

The cans go 'off after 4-8 hours even in the refrigerator with a lid so I have to use them up same day.